Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová

Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová (born 19 November 1899 in Lviv, died on 25 September 1975 in Prague) was a Czech concert pianist and piano teacher, a professor at the Prague Academy of Arts. Her students included Ivan Moravec. Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová was the mother of pianist Pavel Štěpán.

Ilona Štěpánová-Kurzová belongs to notable representatives of the Czech piano school. To the public she is known as appreciated and popular teacher who prepared many marvellous interpreters during her life. Her amazing concert career is omitted nowadays even though Ilona Štěpánová ranked herself among the best European artists of her time.

She was born as the only daughter in musical family of excellent piano teachers Vilém and Růžena Kurzs. She was taught to play piano by her parents from a very young age. Her concert career started in Lviv, Ukraine at the age of ten with Mozart's "Coronation concert in D major" conducted by Oskar Nedbal and accompanied by Viennese Tonkünstlerverein orchestra. This concert was repeated in Vienna and Prague.

Beginning in 1911 she developed extensive concert activity which lasted until the half of 30's. Ilona Štěpánová inherited profession mastery to which she added her own personal contribution - deep inner experience and poetry. Summary of these qualities made her one of the most popular piano players of her time. She performed innumerable solo concerts, accompanied by notable orchestras and chamber ensembles (e. g. Czech, Ševčík's, Prague quartet etc.) in her country and abroad (performances in Poland, Germany, Austria, Holland). She included eleven piano concertos with orchestra and her general and extensive repertoire included principal works of world literature of all style periods (she was especially famous for her interpretation of Chopin's compositions).

Of Czech piano literature she played mostly Josef Suk, Vítězslav Novák, Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, but also compositions of contemporary Czech authors (K. B. Jirák, B. Vomáčka). She presented premieres of many compositions: e.g. in 1919 Ilona Štěpánová played first performance of Dvořák's piano in G minor concert adapted by Vilém Kurz and conducted by Václav Talich; at Frankfurt am Main modern music festival in 1926 she performed the world premiere of Janáček's Concertino (Czech premiere - 16 February 1926); of the Russian literature she played Prokofjev's third piano concert in C major in Prague in 1926 for the first time ever. Marriage to outstanding Czech pianist, composer, teacher and musicologist Václav štěpán (1924) meant another extension of public activities for the pianist. There is movement to contemporary music and many individual concerts from the two pianos literature.

...
Wikipedia